Stuart Brand: Lessons of the 1989 San Francisco Earthquake

 We think that Stuart Brand’s account of the 1989 SF earthquake is – if anything is – a “must-read” for anyone concerned with emergency preparedness. WorldChanging has done us all the service of reprinting it here. 

From Brand’s piece:

Volunteer rescuers in San FranciscoÂ’s Marina District on the night of the 1989 earthquake outnumbered professionals three-to-one during the critical first few hours. And it still wasnÂ’’t enough. Only a small portion of the people present offered emergency help, despite the romanticized press to the contrary.

Considering the amount of money and bureaucracy spent (well spent) on preparing the Bay Area’s buildings for earthquakes, it is startling to realize how little is spent on preparing people. The widespread earthquake literature focuses on self-preservation, not on helping others, nor on the niceties of being helped. As a result, volunteer rescuers on October 17 had to make it up as they went—wasting vital time and making unnecessary mistakes.

My conclusions from Brand’s piece:

  •  Preparation and organization of citizen groups can pay off – providing critical surge capacity
  • investing in communications systems acts as a force multiplier – allowing, among other things, for the rapid reallocation of resources
  •  In addition to the need for widespread advanced first-aid training and equipment – we need lots of people with construction and engineering skills – not only for the “emergency” – but also if we intend to rebuild.

Thanks to Gregory Cohen

of NGO Consulting for giving us the Stuart Brand piece.

Here’s a thought for a presidential campaign plank – from either party:

  1. A commitment to a citizen reserve corps
  2. decommissioned military and law enforcement communications equipment given to citizen groups -especially the non-encrypted systems, which government agencies now think obsolete
  3. Lots of free training in first aid, search-and-rescue, and construction techniques.

None of this is expensive; we’ll try to do the number later. We think it costs – done well – less than a month in Iraq.